We work in an ever-changing landscape of competitors, market forces, customer relationships, partner alliances, political and regulatory pressures, and global climate effects. The common mechanism for coping effectively with change is to refer to canned reports and dashboards, dump reporting data into a spreadsheet and look for answers to today's questions. All too often, we have to rely on estimates rather than models, and gut feel rather than data, because we can't get answers in a timely fashion. Yet we know that the answers lie hidden in the morass of corporate data.
Executive Summary
We work in an ever-changing landscape of competitors, market forces, customer relationships, partner alliances, political and regulatory pressures, and global climate effects. The common mechanism for coping effectively with change is to refer to canned reports and dashboards, dump reporting data into a spreadsheet and look for answers to today's questions. All too often, we have to rely on estimates rather than models, and gut feel rather than data, because we can't get answers in a timely fashion. Yet we know that the answers lie hidden in the morass of corporate data.
These problems have not been solved, despite the promises of business intelligence and data warehouse solutions. Why? Because business intelligence and data warehouse solutions were not designed to store and process the enormous amounts of data and myriad file formats that companies need to manage. We still have silos of information, and it takes too long to scour those silos for the answers we need.
We need to add new capabilities. First, we need a way to reach into our information silos and effortlessly pull out just what we need, when we need it. Second, we need new types of intelligence, to get more leverage from the information we select to answer the burning question of the day.
Spatial business intelligence tools enhance traditional data warehouse solutions and heighten the effectiveness of IT developers and business analysts by making it possible for a wide range of dedicated or casual users to control their own views of critical information. Ford Motor Company's use of spatial business intelligence has helped increase market penetration by 20%. Experian has been able to dramatically cut development cycles, and rapidly deliver on new customer requirements, due to the technology capabilities within spatial business intelligence.
If you find yourself making decisions without the information and analysis you need; if the information you rely on spans silos; if you rely on analyses for your success, you should take a look at what spatial business intelligence tools can do for you.
Getting Answers You Need, When You Need Them
How many times this month have you been faced with a thorny or urgent problem, but the information and analysis you need can't be produced for hours, days, weeks, or maybe ever? What does that cost you? The value of having the right answer when you need it is significant. Executives enjoying timely analyses of newly arising questions assert that they have been able to: . Increase market penetration by 10% annually . Effectively plan and move inventory into the right locations at the right time for higher sales and lower merchandise markdown and return rates COPYRIGHT 2008 GREENHILL ANALYSIS PAGE 1 TIMELY ANSWERS DEFINE INTELLIGENCE
. Achieve above average top-line growth . Determine a store's selling potential when compared to the estimated consumer demand of the trade area . Close deals more quickly leading to higher revenues and greater staff productivity It's no surprise that many of us don't always get timely answers. The difficulty of having the right information is significant, because: . Your information architecture was designed for efficient processing to serve transactional systems, not to answer the question of the hour. . Information from different systems doesn't match nicely; and there are errors and omissions in your information. . People across the organization, at all levels, need analysis - your peers, your staff, and your boss - but have differing levels of familiarity with tools and with the data architectures. . Most of your information is delivered in reports and dashboards that were designed last month or last year. There's a double whammy here: on a daily basis, events raise questions that demand information and analysis not provided by your usual reports and dashboards. But when you try to get the answers you ... [download for more]
